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  5. OpenRefine vs Python

OpenRefine vs Python

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Python
Python
Stacks262.8K
Followers205.4K
Votes6.9K
GitHub Stars69.7K
Forks33.3K
OpenRefine
OpenRefine
Stacks33
Followers68
Votes0
GitHub Stars11.6K
Forks2.1K

OpenRefine vs Python: What are the differences?

Introduction

In this article, we will compare the key differences between OpenRefine and Python, two popular tools used for data cleaning and manipulation. OpenRefine is a web-based tool specifically designed for cleaning and refining messy data, while Python is a versatile programming language that offers various libraries and modules for data processing.

  1. Language and Usage: OpenRefine is a web application that runs in a browser and provides a graphical user interface (GUI), making it easy to interact with the data using various operations and transformations. On the other hand, Python is a programming language that requires writing code to perform data manipulation tasks, offering more flexibility and control over the process.

  2. Data Sources: OpenRefine is primarily designed for working with structured and semi-structured data, such as CSV, TSV, and Excel files. It is particularly well-suited for cleaning messy data, fixing inconsistencies, and reconciling data from different sources. In contrast, Python can handle a wide range of data sources, including databases, APIs, web scraping, and more, making it more versatile in terms of data acquisition.

  3. Data Transformation and Analysis: OpenRefine provides a wide range of built-in functions and transformations for common data cleaning tasks, allowing users to clean and standardize data easily. It also offers features like clustering, faceting, and data exploration. Python, on the other hand, offers a vast ecosystem of libraries like pandas, NumPy, and SciPy, which provide powerful data manipulation and analysis capabilities, including advanced mathematical and statistical operations.

  4. Automation and Reproducibility: In OpenRefine, the data cleaning and transformation steps can be recorded as a "recipe" and applied to other similar datasets, allowing for easy reproducibility. However, it may not be as suitable for complex data processing pipelines or automating repetitive tasks. Python, on the other hand, excels in automation and reproducibility, as code can be written, saved, and easily re-executed, making it more suitable for complex data workflows and batch processing.

  5. Community and Extensibility: OpenRefine has an active user community and provides a set of extensions that can be used to enhance its functionality. However, the number of extensions is relatively limited compared to the vast ecosystem of Python packages and libraries. Python has a large and active community, with a wide range of libraries available for almost any data processing or analysis need, making it highly extensible and customizable.

  6. Learning Curve and Flexibility: OpenRefine has a relatively low learning curve, as it provides an intuitive GUI and automates many common data cleaning tasks. It is suitable for non-programmers or users who prefer a visual interface. Python, on the other hand, requires programming skills and familiarity with the language syntax. It provides more flexibility and control over data processing, making it suitable for users who need advanced data manipulation capabilities or want to integrate data processing with other programming tasks.

In summary, OpenRefine is a web-based tool with a GUI that is tailored for data cleaning and refining, while Python is a powerful programming language with a vast ecosystem of libraries for data processing and analysis. OpenRefine is user-friendly and great for cleaning messy data, while Python offers more flexibility, extensibility, and control over data manipulation tasks.

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Advice on Python, OpenRefine

Thomas
Thomas

Talent Co-Ordinator at Tessian

Mar 11, 2020

Decided

In December we successfully flipped around half a billion monthly API requests from our Ruby on Rails application to some new Python 3 applications. Our Head of Engineering has written a great article as to why we decided to transition from Ruby on Rails to Python 3! Read more about it in the link below.

263k views263k
Comments
Avy
Avy

Apr 8, 2020

Needs adviceonReact NativeReact NativePythonPythonFlutterFlutter

I've been juggling with an app idea and am clueless about how to build it.

A little about the app:

  • Social network type app ,
  • Users can create different directories, in those directories post images and/or text that'll be shared on a public dashboard .

Directory creation is the main point of this app. Besides there'll be rooms(groups),chatting system, search operations similar to instagram,push notifications

I have two options:

  1. @{React Native}|tool:2699|, @{Python}|tool:993|, AWS stack or
  2. @{Flutter}|tool:7180|, @{Go}|tool:1005| ( I don't know what stack or tools to use)
722k views722k
Comments
Davit
Davit

Apr 11, 2020

Needs advice

Hi everyone, I have just started to study web development, so I'm very new in this field. I would like to ask you which tools are most updated and good to use for getting a job in medium-big company. Front-end is basically not changing by time so much (as I understood by researching some info), so my question is about back-end tools. Which backend tools are most updated and requested by medium-big companies (I am searching for immediate job possibly)?

Thank you in advance Davit

390k views390k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

Python
Python
OpenRefine
OpenRefine

Python is a general purpose programming language created by Guido Van Rossum. Python is most praised for its elegant syntax and readable code, if you are just beginning your programming career python suits you best.

It is a powerful tool for working with messy data: cleaning it; transforming it from one format into another; and extending it with web services and external data.

-
Faceting; Clustering; Editing cells; Reconciling; Extending web services
Statistics
GitHub Stars
69.7K
GitHub Stars
11.6K
GitHub Forks
33.3K
GitHub Forks
2.1K
Stacks
262.8K
Stacks
33
Followers
205.4K
Followers
68
Votes
6.9K
Votes
0
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 1186
    Great libraries
  • 966
    Readable code
  • 848
    Beautiful code
  • 789
    Rapid development
  • 692
    Large community
Cons
  • 53
    Still divided between python 2 and python 3
  • 28
    Performance impact
  • 26
    Poor syntax for anonymous functions
  • 22
    GIL
  • 20
    Package management is a mess
No community feedback yet
Integrations
Django
Django
Dask
Dask
Ludwig
Ludwig
Vertica
Vertica

What are some alternatives to Python, OpenRefine?

JavaScript

JavaScript

JavaScript is most known as the scripting language for Web pages, but used in many non-browser environments as well such as node.js or Apache CouchDB. It is a prototype-based, multi-paradigm scripting language that is dynamic,and supports object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles.

PHP

PHP

Fast, flexible and pragmatic, PHP powers everything from your blog to the most popular websites in the world.

Ruby

Ruby

Ruby is a language of careful balance. Its creator, Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto, blended parts of his favorite languages (Perl, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ada, and Lisp) to form a new language that balanced functional programming with imperative programming.

Java

Java

Java is a programming language and computing platform first released by Sun Microsystems in 1995. There are lots of applications and websites that will not work unless you have Java installed, and more are created every day. Java is fast, secure, and reliable. From laptops to datacenters, game consoles to scientific supercomputers, cell phones to the Internet, Java is everywhere!

Golang

Golang

Go is expressive, concise, clean, and efficient. Its concurrency mechanisms make it easy to write programs that get the most out of multicore and networked machines, while its novel type system enables flexible and modular program construction. Go compiles quickly to machine code yet has the convenience of garbage collection and the power of run-time reflection. It's a fast, statically typed, compiled language that feels like a dynamically typed, interpreted language.

HTML5

HTML5

HTML5 is a core technology markup language of the Internet used for structuring and presenting content for the World Wide Web. As of October 2014 this is the final and complete fifth revision of the HTML standard of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The previous version, HTML 4, was standardised in 1997.

C#

C#

C# (pronounced "See Sharp") is a simple, modern, object-oriented, and type-safe programming language. C# has its roots in the C family of languages and will be immediately familiar to C, C++, Java, and JavaScript programmers.

Scala

Scala

Scala is an acronym for “Scalable Language”. This means that Scala grows with you. You can play with it by typing one-line expressions and observing the results. But you can also rely on it for large mission critical systems, as many companies, including Twitter, LinkedIn, or Intel do. To some, Scala feels like a scripting language. Its syntax is concise and low ceremony; its types get out of the way because the compiler can infer them.

Elixir

Elixir

Elixir leverages the Erlang VM, known for running low-latency, distributed and fault-tolerant systems, while also being successfully used in web development and the embedded software domain.

Swift

Swift

Writing code is interactive and fun, the syntax is concise yet expressive, and apps run lightning-fast. Swift is ready for your next iOS and OS X project — or for addition into your current app — because Swift code works side-by-side with Objective-C.

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